


Childhood Headcanon: Alec Hardison

by amarane (aeternalegacy)



Series: Leverage Headcanons [10]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Education, Foster Parent, Foster System, Gen, Headcanon, childhood headcanon, foster child, gifted child, intellectual giftedness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-10
Updated: 2020-09-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:21:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26394829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeternalegacy/pseuds/amarane
Summary: One of my special interests is intellectual giftedness. I’m probably speaking to the choir here but giftedness isn’t about achievement; it’s about how you think and process.There is a severe inequity of access to gifted identification and education, particularly with BIPOC children who are far less likely than white children to be identified for gifted programs, and generally have less access to testing and awareness. A kid like Hardison -- Black, foster child -- could easily get overlooked by the system.More about the disparities in identifying gifted individuals and under-representation in the United States educational system:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-trajectory-race/201706/when-giftedness-is-guise-exclusionhttps://www.educationworld.com/blog/identifying-underrepresented-students-gifted-programs-what-you-can-dohttps://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED334293
Series: Leverage Headcanons [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1831273
Comments: 3
Kudos: 29





	Childhood Headcanon: Alec Hardison

Hardison isn’t entirely sure how he ended up in the foster system. He has access to his files but never looked for information on his bio parents. He has not felt the need to; he knows Nana loves him and as far as he’s concerned, that’s all that matters.

As a young child, he was bounced between several foster homes. His social worker would remind him to “behave” when he got to a new home. Hardison, ever trusting, never really understood what his social worker meant by that. What was he doing that was bad?

At home, he would busy himself with doing things like drawing, writing, taking things apart. Except he did not always have drawing paper or places to write, so he would write and draw wherever he could. Sometimes it was scratch paper, sometimes it was walls. 

Another thing he liked to do as a small child was taking electronics apart like calculators and phones. He was ALWAYS getting in trouble with foster parents because of this. He tried to explain that he was going to put them back together again but adults never wanted to hear it; they only saw him as destructive.

In elementary school, he got in trouble A LOT. He was always talking out of turn, getting up out of his seat, debating with teachers. Teachers would send him to the principal’s office as a behavioral problem.

Eventually, he ended up at Nana’s house. She was the first person to think, “Huh. Why’s this boy acting out?” Every time Hardison got sent to the principal’s office, Nana was there to start yelling at the school staff. 

Because of Nana’s ever stubborn intervention, Hardison got the support he needed. The school staff realized that he was acting out because he was gifted -- and bored as fuck in his classroom. They moved him up two grades to keep him occupied, which helped to curb his in class boredom with more challenging (and appropriate) school work.

Nana asked around for old, junked electronics from the neighborhood and church, for Hardison to take apart, so he didn’t have to take working electronics from the home. 

This is how Hardison got his first computer -- a Pentium 386 with an external 14.4kbps modem. Between that, and some books from the library, he got himself online and the rest is history.

**Author's Note:**

> One of my special interests is intellectual giftedness. I’m probably speaking to the choir here but giftedness isn’t about achievement; it’s about how you think and process.
> 
> There is a severe inequity of access to gifted identification and education, particularly with BIPOC children who are far less likely than white children to be identified for gifted programs, and generally have less access to testing and awareness. A kid like Hardison -- Black, foster child -- could easily get overlooked by the system.
> 
> More about the disparities in identifying gifted individuals and under-representation in the United States educational system:
> 
> https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-trajectory-race/201706/when-giftedness-is-guise-exclusion  
> https://www.educationworld.com/blog/identifying-underrepresented-students-gifted-programs-what-you-can-do  
> https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED334293


End file.
